Source:McIntosh, John H. Official History of Elbert County, 1790-1935, p. 399-400, provides the basic birth order given here, justifying it as being what is indicated in the settlement of the estate of Ambrose Clark in 1820. Apparently, Larkin's birth is known to be 1760, and Sarah was 50 in 1813, so born 1763. To match the given sequence of Larkin, Ambrose, George, and Sarah, their births are thus presumed to be 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763.

This frequency of births is unusual, and so this order is far from certain. Especially as the text of the settlement is not given, and the text says "it appears". There are several alternate arrangements that could be suggested.

For one thing there is a gap between Joseph in 1752 and Larkin in 1760 with only one son, Robert, in it. It would give a more natural looking distribution to move one or more of the children up into this gap.

Since, in the only joint listing of Ambrose and Larkin in William's will, Ambrose is listed before Larkin, one could speculate that Ambrose may actually be born before Larkin, say, about 1758. However, there is no single listing of all the children and it is not certain what order the sublists are in.

Sarah is the only daughter of the second marriage, so we cannot tell if the list is organized strictly by age, or by gender first and then by age (which is not uncommon). The latter arrangement opens up the possibility that Sarah is not the youngest child, merely the youngest (only) daughter. If this was allowed, George (or the others) might not have to necessarily be born before Sarah and would fit better nearer to 1765. However, since William Clark was between 60 and 70 in 1765, based on various estimates of Wiliam's birth, births were probably not much later than this.

Robert m. 1791, Ambrose m. 1797, George m. 1798 and no information is given for when Larkin's marriage occurred. This consideration offers no real help.

None of these changes have been reflected on this page, and the order given by the above source has been adhered to. The alternatives are merely mentioned to reflect the uncertainty of this information.

References

↑ The estimated marriage of about 1751 is based on the birth of son Joseph 12 Apr 1752.